May 26, 2004

Central Asian visas in Beijing

Some notes on my quest to acquire visas for Central Asia whilst staying in Beijing, in the hope that they might prove useful to someone else doing the same thing.

This is all based on an Australian passport although for most destinations the rules are the same for all countries. One notable exception is: Uzbekistan - no invitation needed for US and some EU countries.

Kyrgystan - no invitation required. 7 calendar days processing. Y462 (about $50). Received as promised. One month but with fixed entry date.

Tajikistan - no invitation required. 10 days processing. They don't keep your passport whilst doing the processing. Costs: 15 days - $50, 1 month - $60, 2 months - $70. Have to specify exact start date so I took a 1 month option to give myself some wiggle room on entering. You don't pay until you pick the visa up. Very nice people also.

From reading messages from others it appears unusual to not need the invitation, so Beijing's a good bet from that angle.

Note that they've moved address since publication of the Lonely Planet. Same building complex but now in 5-1-41 (building 5, unit 1 (left hand side), 4th floor).

Also note that they can't help at all with the GBAO permit. All the official information seems to be that's it's only available in Dushanbe.

More on the GBAO permit: a couple of people have picked one up in Murgab. See their excellent description here.

I have also just learned that Michael at Great Game Travel can now issue the permit by email in two weeks for £35.

Uzbekistan - invitation required. Getting one from Stantours for $30. Dolores Tour (formerly Sambuh) also seem well set up for this but charge $50 for the privilege (or $40 if you book at least 3 days in a hotel, starting price $20 a night).

Update: Invitation received via email after about a week or so.

The one month visa itself is a fairly steep $72 in Bishkek (US dollars only, not som).

Note on the Uzbek embassy in Bishkek: to get in the door in the morning you need to make an appointment by called 66-30-78 the previous afternoon (not morning). You'll need a Russian speaker to help as any attempt at English results in the phone being promptly hung-up. Payment is in US dollars but there's an ATM opposite the White House (parliament building) that issues $100 US notes.

If you don't have an appointment you could just turn up in the morning and you might be lucky. I was but others weren't.

Turkmenistan - invitation required. The Beijing embassy has moved to a housing complex about 4 km from the main embassy zone. I don't have the address in English but if you go to any other embassy they usually have a list of all embassies. Get them to write it down in Chinese then show this to a taxi driver. It's about a Y10 fare. It takes them 10 days to process an application.

For the invitation is appears that a couple of nights in a hotel are not enough. By government decree you must have a tour for the whole duration of your stay. The alternative is a transit visa for 5 days (although anywhere between 3 and 7 may be possible depending on the whim of the issuing embassy it seems). Note that the 5 days includes both the entry and exit days (so only 3 clear days in the country). Does not require an invitation but still take 10 days to process. To collect the transit visa you need to already have a visa for the following country and you can only travel directly across the country. I was going to do this anyway as most of my sights of interest are just by the northern border and then Ashgabat in the south.

Mind you, the Beijing embassy denies the existance of such visas.

In the end I'm getting Stantours to organise the visa. I'll pick it up in Tashkent, where I'll also get the Iranian visa. They do this for $30.

On my travels I met a Dutch guy who had a proper tourist visa by dint of organising all his accomodation and transport beforehand through a travel agency. It came to US$270 in total but he was only there for four days. There's not really much to see.

I finally got the visa organised by the time I got to Tashkent. Upon fronting to the embassy though they denied all knowledge of any such thing, said that they never deal with agencies, and that the agency is lying! I'll called the guys at the agency and they are trying to sort it out. Such lovely chaps are the Turkmen.

All sorted out the next day. $31 for a 5 day transit visa. Fixed entry date.

Iran - invitation required. Another one for Stantours. Again $30. The application for the invitation apparently takes 3-4 weeks so get this one started early. I should be able to pick it up in Tashkent.

www.iranianvisa.com seem very capable as well. They have a very nice website with online form and were quite prompt and helpful in responding to questions. In fact, I think Stantours use them for this visa. Recommended.

I'm getting a 14 day visa on the recommendation of Stantours, who believe it's more likely to be issued than the one month visa, but I've met a few travellers coming from Iran who reckon the one month is easy enough to get.

Stop press: Disaster on the Iranian visa. It's been rejected. No reason given. I might be able to re-apply with my Irish passport. Fingers crossed. Otherwise it really complicates the route.

Iranian embassies are particularly annoying. They plaster their outside walls with wonderful photos of all the cool things you can see in the country, then refuse to let you in. Doh!

My advice for Iran is to get it from home if possible. I met a couple of people that got one month visas in Europe and a friend researching in Australia said that the embassy there said no problem.

More info on the different embassies: according to the embassy in Kyrgyzstan all of the Central Asian embassies can issue a visa in two weeks (if you are approved) with no invitation. Beijing insisted on an invitation. All that's happening here is that the embassy is requesting permission from home rather than an agency doing it for you.

However, a German bloke wrote to me to say that he picked up an Iranian visa in Dushanbe (Tajikistan) in three days with the support of a Letter of Introduction from his embassy. When I tried there however they gave the standard two weeks line. Your mileage may vary.

I finally got it sorted on my Irish passport, again through Stantours. When I got to the embassy in Tashkent they said they hadn't received the invitation paperwork yet because it takes three days for documents to move from the fax room to the consulate!

One week later they'd found the invitation, that was Wednesday, they said come back next Monday. Almost there.

Azerbaijan - a little outside of the others but just in case people are trying this as well. I ended up applying for this one in Tashkent. Pretty straightforward. They asked for an invitation but when I said I didn't have one it didn't seem to matter. $50 for 3 day processing and $40 for one week processing for a one month visa, fixed entry date.

The embassy is just off the Lonely Planet (2000 edition) map. Go off the metro at Yoshlik and walk south along Halqlar Dustligi about five minutes. The embassy is in a nice building on your right, just over the bridge.

Georgia - Dead easy. Two hours in Tashkent and US$50 for a one month visa with fixed dates.

General

For Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Iran, once the invitation/transit visa paperwork is complete it's supposedly a same-day operation at the embassy. They already have all your details and can issue the visa on the spot. For this reason though you have to specify which embassy you'll pick the visa up from when you're getting the invitation.

Big wraps for Stantours (so far). Very helpful and responsive, and you can pay with Paypal!

In the end I'm probably going to get the Kyrgyz and Tajik visas here in Beijing, then get the others in Bishkek (Kyr) and Tashkent (Uzb). Otherwise I'll be here for a month. I'll get the ball rolling on the invitations though, since they also usually take about 10 days to process (Ministry of Foreign Affairs processing time).

Note that to even get near most embassies you need your passport to flash at the guards blocking the streets. I'm sure you're carrying that at all times anyway though.

All Central Asian visas are fixed entry date. You can get around this hassle a little by getting longer visas with overlapping dates. The Tajik consul was quite happy to give me a two month visa for an extra $10.

Tips

Big tip! Have a scanned copy of your passport available somehow. You could mail it to your hotmail account to have it accessible there. Many applications can be conducted principally by email if you can email your passport to the visa support company (who then prints it out to send to the immigration office).

Buying US dollars

If you're in Beijing and suddenly discover that you need US cash for the 'stans there are officially only two places you can do this. Bank of China at the airport and the main Beijing office at 8 Ya Bao Lu, Jianguomen. I discovered that the branch next to the Kempinski Hotel behind the Lufthansa Centre will also do it though, and it's closer to the Sanlitan embassy district.

To buy US dollars you are supposed to have Foreign Exchange Receipt, showing that you have already concerted money to RMB. You probably don't (I didn't) but if you have ATM receipts they work just as well (since it's effectively the same thing). So keep those receipts!

Posted by David at May 26, 2004 12:06 AM